Victor
Portrayed by Enver Gjokaj, Victor is a character of Dollhouse. He is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with identities, personalities, skills, and memories in order to be sent into the world on engagements. Between engagements they live in the Dollhouse with no memory of their pasts or knowledge of their futures. Victor is "the distractingly handsome Doll who is called upon to play everyone from Errol Flynn to Robert DeNiro". Character Development Background Victor's original identity revealed in "Stop-Loss" as Anthony Ceccoli, a Afghanistan war veteran with severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (or PTSD) which he was cured of in exchange for a five-year contact with the Dollhouse. Previous episodes hinted of his military past. For example, his behavior during the experiment in "Needs" suggests that he used to be in the military. During the episode "Echoes" Victor is exposed to N-7316, a drug that bypasses the blocks the Dollhouse has put on its actives' memories. Victor experiences a flashback where he is a soldier trying to save a young woman in a war zone. She panics and runs off, setting off an explosive. In the episode "Belonging", Victor is trying to get rid of black paint because Sierra has been making dark pictures with it that make her sad. Reasoning that without the paint she would be happy and with some help from Echo, he collects the paint and begins to pour in down the showers when Sierra comes in. After explaining what he was doing, Sierra thanks him before painting on him and herself saying he looks like an Indian chief. This statement coupled with seeing Sierra in black face paint brings up another war memory and Victor sees another soldier asking him for orders in the middle of a war zone. Victor then collapses into Sierra's arms, weeping that he doesn't want to be in charge. ''Dollhouse'' Victor, along with Echo and Sierra, is part of a trio of Dolls who continually seek out each other's company during down time at the Dollhouse. Topher Brink writes this off as "herd" behavior, but the three Dolls show signs of human friendship. Topher first notices something more suspicious than herd behavior when, in "True Believer," he observes Victor's erection when in his doll state, which is not supposed to happen. Victor has obviously started to show signs of attraction toward Sierra though he may not realize it at the moment. He has, however, been employed by the Dollhouse long enough to have attracted a regular client, a woman nicknamed "Miss Lonely Hearts" by the Dollhouse staff. Topher and Dr. Claire Saunders review the surveillance footage of the showers and notice that Victor responds to Sierra's presence, not to any residual imprinting from his engagements with Miss Lonelyhearts. Adelle responds to this news by ordering Victor to be "scrubbed." "A Spy in the House of Love" shows that "Miss Lonelyhearts" is actually Adelle, who has been hiring Victor secretly as "Roger," a suave Englishman. After the events of the episode, Adelle says "Miss Lonelyhearts" will no longer be hiring "Roger." In "Man on the Street," Victor is suspected of raping Sierra. The evidence seems stacked against him: she screams in response to his touch, she is found to have been having sex recently, and she tells the staff that Victor likes to "pretend they were married." After these events, at Langton's instruction, Dollhouse staff members detain Victor and his substitute handler, Bicks (his regular handler is Selena Ramirez). The detention confuses and upsets Victor because, as he tells Echo, he can't understand why Sierra screamed at him, and nobody has told him what action had gotten him into trouble. Fortunately for Victor, he and his handler's incarceration is just a ruse by Langton in order to flush out the real culprit, Joe Hearn, Sierra's handler. Afterward, Sierra is wiped in order for her to forget the ordeals, and Victor goes to see her while she is reading. He is happy that Sierra is back to her calm self, and after asking her, he sits down to read a book with her. In "Needs", Victor notes to Sierra that he is aware of what is happening to him while in the Dollhouse but is unable to do anything, in a sense being trapped in his own body and mind. This would suggest he is also developing sentience but in a different way to Echo. He even mentions that he saw Sierra being raped but couldn't do anything because of his doll state. He also always stays up to watch Sierra go to sleep to make sure she is all right, showing more of a developing bond. When he and Sierra encountered Nolan he displayed a protective nature to Sierra by attacking Nolan for what he did to her. In "Briar Rose", Victor is imprinted with Laurence Dominic's personality to answer a question about a mysterious flash drive. Later, he is awoken in his sleeping pod when a fight between Boyd and Paul breaks the cover, giving him minor scratches. Claire finds him and takes him to her office, where Alpha is lying in wait. Alpha slashes Victor's face with a knife. In "Omega", Dr. Saunders tends to Victor's scarred face. Victor realizes he isn't "my best" anymore, and Saunders is unable to comfort him, even angrily announcing that now he is stuck being ugly. In "Vows", Victor undergoes an expensive treatment to repair his scars, at Adelle's personal request. In "Belle Chose", Victor is imprinted with the mind of Terry Karrens, a comatose serial killer, in order to find out where his victims are. Terry/Victor then escapes and goes looking for another victim. Topher's attempt to remote wipe him instead results in swapping imprints with Echo, and he receives the Kiki imprint. Kiki's college girl behavior in Victor's male body leads to an altercation with some club patrons which Paul rescues "her" from. "Belonging" shows that Victor was one of the Actives hired by Nolan Kinnard to help him seduce Priya Tsetsang. Even in this state, as early as their first encounter he demonstrates that he is attracted to and protective of her. In the present, Victor tries to help Sierra's distress by getting rid of the black paint in the art class, but this sets off another war flashback. When Sierra is sent away, he sits and waits patiently for her to return. The episode ends with him and Sierra cuddling in a sleep pod while Echo watches over them. In "The Left Hand", Topher imprints Victor with a copy of his own mind to stay in Los Angeles and assist him in recovering Echo from the D.C. Dollhouse. In "Meet Jane Doe", Matthew Harding has Victor and Sierra are imprinted as a research & development scientists working under Topher to perfect the remote wipe technology. When their successes are demonstrated, Victor and Sierra cannot contain their joys and they begin kissing. Topher wipes them, but Harding nevertheless notices they are "grouping" and recommends splitting them up. In "A Love Supreme", Victor is programmed as a Jewish psychologist (nicknamed "Dr Freudenstein" to analyse the new, wholly self-aware Echo's mental state. Later, like all the other dolls, he is remotely imprinted by Alpha to attack the Dollhouse employees; Topher wipes him with the new device. Subsequently, in "Stop-Loss", Victor is restored to the original Anthony personality, although Rossum attempt to reacquire him for their military division, Scytheon as part of a groupthink cell of Actives. In his rescue mission, Anthony Ceccoli meets Priya for the first time. It is unknown if he ever returns to being Victor, but Alpha does know him by such a name in "Epitaph Two: Return"; from "The Hollow Men" onwards, Anthony begins self-imprinting himself with various super-skills, beginning with fighting skills. Priya is dismayed that he cannot leave "Victor" behind him. Anthony reassumes the name "Victor" when he forms a team of self-imprinting fighters in the resistance against the Rossum Corporation ( ). Original Introduction Originally announced as one of show's main characters, by January 2009 Victor has disappeared from the official lists of Dollhouse-characters and Gjokaj was credited as playing Lubov, a Russian gangster. However, by the show's third episode it became apparent that Lubov is a personality imprinted into Victor. The same trick was pulled with Miracle Laurie's character November. November was mentioned in initial press reports but then Laurie was said to have been recast as Mellie - until it was shown that Mellie was an imprint of November. In the original pilot, "Echo", Victor is climbing a rock wall and trying to throw off Agent Ballard of his pursuits of the Dollhouse. Victor does not have a Russian accent, however he does employ one in the Lubov imprint. Trivia * Victor does not appear in 2x02 "Instinct" and 2x05 "The Public Eye". Engagements Notes & References